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Social Media: What’s Ahead for 2015?

2014 is about to close and 2015 is just around the corner; should be doing something different for your social media campaign in the new year? There are a lot of changes on the social media horizon and being prepared for them will ensure that your business stays ahead of the competition in the New Year.

 

Below are some of the biggest changes coming to social media and how you can change what you are doing to accommodate these changes and adapt with them as social media takes a giant leap forward into the next generation.

 

Shopping Comes to Social Media

Shopping is finally going to make its appearance on the social media scene. Facebook and Twitter have been beta-testing purchase buttons that will appear alongside tweets and posts to give users the ability to make purchases without leaving the site. This approach to marketing addresses one critical issue that merchants have continually faced with e-commerce, namely attracting customers to their website.

 

What You Can Do: Utilize a variety of useful social media. Try using content that answers consumers’ questions. Make sure you are prepared when your customer is ready to buy with tailored landing pages.

 

Networks on the Rise

While it will still be important to ensure your marketing campaigns are focused on the big social media networks, including Facebook and Twitter, make sure that you are not ignoring newcomers. Several social media networks have received an increase in popularity of late, including Secret, Snapchat, and Whisper. Additionally, several other new networks are emerging on the scene. Exactly how these newcomers will prove to shape up remains to be seen, but it is important to keep an eye on the social media scene as a whole.

 

What You Can Do: Make sure you are represented across a diverse array of social media networks, including the up and coming.

 

Social Media Ad-Spend Will Increase

Social media ad spend is set to increase significantly as more brands realize the importance of social media marketing. As businesses continue to see positive results from the investments they have made in social media marketing, ad spend will likely further increase.

 

What You Can Do: Review your social media advertising budget and plan accordingly for next year. Be prepared to increase your budget in order to ensure that you remain competitive.

 

The Humanization of Social Media

There will be an increased focus by brands on interacting with customers on a more personal level. Brands which are successful in achieving the goal of connecting with their customers in a more personal manner will be better positioned to take advantage of improved brand loyalty, higher conversion rates, and faster audience growth.

 

What You Can Do: Look for opportunities where you can bring out the human side in your social media content.

 

A Boost in Image-Based Social Media

We will see an increase in image-based social media. Both Instagram and Pinterest have performed quite well. In particular, Instagram has attracted users with the addition of a variety of features, including video editing capabilities. With the introduction of in-feed video advertising, Instagram is set to attract even more marketers going into next year. This feature gives marketers the option to pay the social media site for 15-second videos based on the gender, age, and demographics of users.

 

What You Can Do: If you do not already have a presence of image-based social media, including Pinterest and Instagram, make this a priority for the coming year.

 

A Marriage between Social Media Marketing and Content Marketing

More marketers are beginning to recognize the importance of integrating content marketing with social media marketing. Social media provides the ideal platform for content marketing, and given that interesting content is one of the leading reasons that consumers follow brands on social media, this could be a big part of the future success of your business.

 

What You Can Do: Begin planning your content marketing strategy for next year and look for opportunities where you can integrate your content marketing with your social media marketing campaign for more impactful results.

 

Social Media Marketing Becomes Even More Data Driven

Data driven marketing efforts are not new to social media marketing, but going into the coming year, more marketers will begin to make data a priority.

 

What You Can Do: Make plans now to incorporate data even more in your marketing efforts next year. Review your budget to determine potential for ad spend increases based on data driven marketing.